It is time for us to rethink our beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors about the use we make of our sexual energies. How and with whom we use these energies are among the most important decisions we shall ever make in life. The consequences are immediate for the entire gamut of life lived, from the raw physical to the subtler mental and emotional levels we inhabit, to whatever higher-mindedness we may aspire toward, whether ethical, philosophical, or spiritual -- or all of these, seeing that they are components to be found in us all.

EXCHANGES OF ENERGY

When two people are committed to each other in a mature bond of love, they willingly take on and carry each other's energy. Some of the energy they take on from each other may be negative: most of us have flaws and imperfections that we carry energetically, as well as on other levels. But this is part of the commitment we make in love that strives to be unconditional. We willingly accept both the positive and negative of the other person, and this includes what they are carrying energetically.

THE FAIR EXCHANGE: HEALING

When love is present, much of the energy that is formed and exchanged during lovemaking is creative and healing. The lovemaking and the ensuing exchange of energies actually have the power to clear away negative and dark energies that the lovers may be carrying. This is one of the great, but often unrecognized, benefits of lovemaking. It can actually be a source of healing.

This includes physical healing. Many illnesses are caused by problems in the energy centers and by depletion or by imbalances in the energy field. The movement and fusion of energies in lovemaking can actually keep the energy centers open and their energies flowing and the energy field full and vibrant with energy, preventing or removing the conditions in the energy field that could manifest in the physical body as disease.

TRANSFORMATION AND COMMITMENT

Lovemaking can also be a source of transformation. When our thoughts and feelings are unencumbered by negative and dark energies, we have a better chance of becoming our best. That is, we can move into the highest frequency of energy, which is love.


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This is what we can aspire to in lovemaking -- but only within a relationship where there is a genuine and deep bond of love and commitment between the partners. This is the context that lovemaking requires. To open ourselves to another and to love deeply requires trust -- and trust calls for commitment. Let us, for a moment, examine commitment.

"FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE"

When we fully commit to another in love, we willingly accept both the positive and negative of the other person, and this includes what they are carrying energetically -- because what we carry energetically is a part of who we are that we bring to the relationship. But we do so only with a positive adjustment in view. We strive together, in love and mutual support, to confront and let go of all that is not love. Here we see another level of meaning in the old words "for better or for worse" used in the traditional marriage vow.

But why would we accept and strive, even in these positive ways? Because we are now moving in love, which, while certainly not a mortgaging of self to abuse or sacrifice, nonetheless constitutes a willingness to share from our own store of good. Energetic give-and-take lies at the heart of bonding and makes of two persons the desired one that robs neither of anything but instead confers only good, each upon the other. And it is only within a context of love that this energetic give-and-take can heal and bring the lovers to a oneness.

WHAT IS THIS COMMITMENT?

Commitment in the exchange of sexual energy lies precisely within the exchange itself. Love does not, cannot, horde. In love, energy is never arrested, thwarted, stifled. In the healthy person open to the exchange of energies in love, there is no "armoring" or "steeling" of the emotions, the nerves, or the muscles against a prospective misuse, abuse, or other depreciation of energies, feelings, or body.

Commitment here means being what the French call engage -- the very opposite of being alienated, distant, aloof, suspicious. It is rather total nakedness in more than just body -- in the presence of the one chosen to receive and give sexual energy, its roots in the very depths of our energy centers and total energy field.

Commitment, then, is much, much more than anything that boils down to words or statements. It is a state of being, wholly SELF-ish in the best sense of the word. And it is also the willingness to give oneself wholly to the other, where two can become one. For many, it is in lovemaking that this sense of oneness is first experienced.

MARRIAGE?

Commitment in this context naturally suggests marriage. And although marriage is not a requisite for the highest expression of sexual energies, it is a "summit" of sorts in the realm of love-making -- but again, not necessarily for all the "traditional" reasons.

In its own highest expression, marriage is a special relationship in which two persons jointly and reciprocally commit to a life of love. This is the primary reason two persons should marry. If they truly strive to love each other and live that love with all their hearts, minds, and bodies, the relationship will carry the potential to transform them at their deepest levels.

In this sense, marriage provides the "container" for the feelings that begin to come alive in us at the initial stirring of romantic love. As the lovers open more to each other and to love, they can transcend the limitations of the ordinary mind and move into a consciousness of love found in the awakened mind, and closer to a oneness with each other. It is when we move into this "mind of love," which opens to us in lovemaking and orgasm, that the experience of oneness becomes possible.

This is what we most deeply desire in romantic love, and it is a formidable achievement, one that cannot be gained through a relationship where a genuine bond of love and lasting commitment are not present. And we would be naive to believe that love goes unchallenged by powerful forces within and outside ourselves. Without an abiding commitment to each other and to love, which in most cases is found only in marriage, lovers run a great risk of losing their way and of having their love for each other run aground.

Marriage, then, is meant to "seal" the love between the lovers. It is a means of sealing a union between two people striving together to achieve something truly extraordinary in their lives and relationship. And that sealing affords an indispensable element of defense against those forces inimical to love that the lovers must not ignore or underestimate if their love is to survive and grow.

Naturally, marriage cannot create that love -- although its power, once engaged and committed to, could reverse many an unwholesome background or bad beginning. As a seal, though devoid of magical powers, marriage can confer a special protection on the love and the relationship. Among other things, it can bring in light and help to shut out the dimness of misbegotten energies. For the "seal" is in the minds and the hearts of the lovers.

Each partner in a marriage in which love is present can be the minister of love to the other. In this ministry our deepest wounds can be healed. Partly, this takes place in the energetic "give-and-take": the willingness to take on each other's energy in the framework of a commitment in which the lovers, as individuals and as a couple, strive to be all they can be. They thus become of much benefit and blessing to and for each other

MARRIAGE THE "DIALYZER"

The healing that can come through marriage is a process somewhat comparable to dialysis, in which poisons or impurities are separated out from the healthy solution. Here, the impurities, which take the form of thoughts, emotions, and the effects of past choices -- all of which we carry as energy -- are those parts of ourselves that are not of love and that act to obscure the love that is our essence.

In romantic love, each partner goes through a process of purification in what can be a wholly wordless, non-conceptual, interactive way, love being the sole "filter." This process will be facilitated if each partner is anchored in some form of conscious striving for greater openness and self-awareness, such as meditation, healthy introspection, analysis, counseling, prayer, or insightful spiritual practices.

A process of purification is really unavoidable in love. As the love between the lovers comes alive, it is as if the light of their love illuminates and draws out of them their inner darkness -- those parts of their personalities that are not of love. The emergence of these impurities, while difficult and at times painful to deal with, offers one the opportunity, often otherwise avoided, to face and deal with those parts of oneself that prevent one from knowing and becoming the fullness of love that one can be.

Marriage is therefore a process -- one in which we can come to know ourselves and have the opportunity to filter out the poisons we carry, which are certainly not of love. Likewise, we can help our partner do the same. Most, of us carry energies -- "impurities" -- that can undermine the love that was the basis for the marriage. Viewed another way, then, this process is the "alchemy" of love, which can be experienced in a special way in marriage.

MARRIAGE THE CHALLENGER

Marriage, then, presents us with a challenge it quite rightly poses: to love and to be loved in commitment and reciprocity. In our human condition, although love is what we most deeply desire, it is not always simple or easy to love and be loved. Any "simplicity" or "ease" has to be worked out on many levels, all of them as complex as we ourselves are.

At our deepest level, we long to be whole in relation to another. We long to know and be known, to love and be loved, by another. Ultimately, then, most of us long to find that other, that partner, with whom we can experience pure love and become one. And we are, in a basic way, unfulfilled until we do.

This longing to join and become one with another is a defining characteristic of romantic love. To this some will add that the desire to become one with the beloved in romantic love is an expression of the soul's greatest longing: to become one with the divine.


This article was excerpted from:

Sex True or False? by Michelle & Kevin Hennelly. Sex True or False?
by Michelle & Kevin Hennelly.


Reprinted with permission of the publisher, DeVorss Publications. ©2003. www.devorss.com

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About the Authors

Michelle Rios Rice Hennelly & R. Kevin HennellyMICHELLE RIOS RICE HENNELLY is a healer. She received a BA from the College of Santa Fe and a MSW from New Mexico Highlands University. ROBERT KEVIN HENNELLY is a former attorney and currently a psychotherapist. He received a BA from the University of Notre Dame, a law degree and MS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, and graduate degrees in counseling and clinical psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and the Fielding Institute. Visit their website at http://www.ourladyoflightpublications.com.

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